News from the Campaign Trail:

10/21/04
If Howard Mills is the little-known candidate for the United States Senate, then David McReynolds and Donald Silberger are, politically speaking, invisible. They are among the marginal party candidates, office seekers who worked their way onto the ballot by collecting enough signatures on petitions. Mr. McReynolds is representing the Green Party. Mr. Silberger is representing the Libertarian Party. In fact, when New York voters step into the booth on Nov. 2, they will have seven names from which to choose for the United States Senate, including not only the Conservative Party candidate, Dr. Marilyn O'Grady, but also the eccentric developer Abe Hirschfeld, who was convicted in 2000 of conspiring to kill a business partner, and the Socialist Workers Party candidate, Martin Koppel. (NY Times)

10/20/04
In the second and final debate in the race for the United
States Senate seat in New York, Senator Charles Schumer
found himself under sharp attack from his Republican and
Conservative opponents last night over his record on
everything from homeland security and the appointment of
federal judges to the availability of flu vaccines. But for most of the hourlong debate, Schumer pointedly ignored the jabs and instead sought to
portray himself as an effective senator with a long record
of accomplishment that includes helping secure billions of
dollars in aid for New York in the wake of the 9/11
terrorist attacks. (NY Times)

10/18/04
The first televised debate of the race for the United States Senate seat in New York, the Republican challenger, Assemblyman Howard D. Mills, accused Senator Charles E. Schumer yesterday of being better at talking about issues than at actually delivering for his constituents. But Mr. Schumer, a Democrat, portrayed himself as a hard-working senator who has delivered on everything from homeland security to helping save family-owned apple farms. (NY Times)

10/11/04
Charles Schumer's re-election contest has been so completely overshadowed by the presidential campaign - and by what polls show to be his own colossally lopsided race - that many people do not even know it is happening. From Newburgh to Buffalo, challenger Howard Mills says, before he can even begin talking about why he should be senator, he has often had to tell people who he is and whom he is running against. (NY Times)

10/07/04
Senator Charles Schumer announced that he would participate in two debates with Republican and Conservative candidates challenging his bid for a second term. (NY Times.)

10/05/04
With a month to go before Election Day, United States Senator Charles E. Schumer decided the time was finally right to start his re-election campaign with a television advertisement that began being broadcast yesterday around the state. (NY Times)

10/05/04
Senator Schumer, who clamored for as many debates as possible when he was the underdog challenger in 1998, is taking a different approach now that he's the heavily favored incumbent. With less than a month to go before Election Day, Mr. Schumer has not committed to a single face-off with his Republican opponent, Assemblyman Howard Mills, or the Conservative candidate, Marilyn O'Grady. (NY Sun)

8/30/04
Senate hopeful Howard Mills was feted by New York Republicans on the opening
day of their party's convention, but he has yet to spark much interest from
national party players. But later in the day, however, came a fresh reminder
of just how much of an underdog Mills is in his race to unseat Schumer. The
National Republican Senatorial Committee will hold an event Tuesday with six
Republicans considered contenders to win a seat in the Senate, but Mills is
not scheduled to appear. (Associated Press)

8/20/04
Dr. Marilyn O'Grady is funding a 30-second TV ad that criticizes singer
Bruce Springsteen's upcoming anti-Bush concert and reminds us that Mr.
Springsteen urged that President Bush be impeached. Springsteen thinks, Dr.
O'Grady says, that just because he earns millions doing a song and dance
routine he thinks he can tell us how to vote. She ends the ad saying,
"Here's my vote. Boycott the Boss. If you don't buy his politics, don't buy
his music." (NY Sun)

8/18/04
U.S. Senate hopeful Howard Mills on Tuesday proposed a $36.7 billion federal
tax-cut plan to help working-class people, funded in part by spending
restrictions on those he hopes to join in Washington, D.C. (Times Albany
Union)

07/14/04
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said yesterday that it was not clear to him that
Charles E. Schumer, New York's senior senator, was running for re-election.
Or that he had a Republican challenger, Howard Mills, a state assemblyman.
(NY Times)

06/24/04
Howard Mills does not have much money, or support, or, for that matter,
basic name recognition in his bid to unseat United States Senator Charles E.
Schumer. But Mr. Mills did manage to land a blow in his long-shot bid this
week. Mr. Mills's staff pored over documents and maps and found that during
his years in office, Mr. Schumer chartered private planes 603 times,
spending $409,253 of taxpayer money. They asserted that they had caught the
senator using tax dollars to fly around the state to raise campaign cash,
which would be illegal, and turned their findings over to The New York
Times. Asked for a response to Mr. Mills's claims, Mr. Schumer's staff
began its own review, and found that on some 35 occasions, Mr. Schumer had
let taxpayers foot the bill for his political and fund-raising trips.
It was, if nothing else, a humbling moment for Mr. Schumer, a Democrat,
whose office described the questionable billing as ''accounting errors.''
After having tried to effectively ignore his opponent as irrelevant, Mr.
Schumer's staff instead had to announce that the senator's campaign was --
because of Mr. Mills's initial inquiries -- returning some $20,000 to the
federal government. (NY Times)

05/18/04
President Bush has nearly $109 million on hand in his campaign to stay in
the White House. John Kerry has $32 million sitting in his election coffers
as he runs for the same job. Not far behind them is a politician who faces
only token opposition this year: Charles E. Schumer, New York's senior
senator, who has nearly $21 million in the bank, the third-largest reserve
of campaign cash of any politician in Washington up for election. (NY Times)

2/25/04
Howard Mills, a little-known Republican assemblyman from Wallkill who is
seeking to challenge Senator Charles E. Schumer, jumped into the race on
Tuesday by trying to establish himself as a serious candidate and addressing
doubts about his ability to compete financially. (NY Times)

02/19/04
State Republicans have picked a little-known politician from Orange County to challenge Sen. Charles Schumer, ending a months-long search for a candidate - whom some quickly labeled a sacrificial lamb. But Assemblyman Howard Mills, 39, insisted that he at least had a fighting chance to defeat the popular, hard-driving and well-financed Schumer, saying, "I know about his bank account, but I also know about his record: He doesn't have one." Mills, a pro-death penalty, pro-abortion rights moderate from the town of Hamptonburgh, whose campaign committee has a mere $105,000 to a massive $20 million for Schumer, said: "Since Sen. Schumer went to Washington, he has not been able to deliver what New York needs. (New York Post)